Share this:

Ubisoft have announced that the beta test for new management-strategy sequel Settlers 7 will take place from 19th of January, but it’s limited to North America and the United Kingdom residents. You can sign up over here, but it does require a Fileplanet account. I know! All these conditions… The beta will encompass both multiplayer and single player elements of the game, which is looking rather cute.

This version has brought paths back and if you ignore the increditerrible trailer with the people sitting around a table and watch the proper one it seems to be much closer to being a reboot of the original than an attempt at a sequel. I’m actually quite excited about this.

S1 and S2 are classics. I loved having the option of defending a valley with just a forester and a catapult.

I personally quite liked S3 although the combat aspect was rather arbitrary and the co-op muiltiplayer was bugged in the worst possible way (meaning that after a couple of hours in, you realise that your game is out of sync, and the game itself doesn’t spot this).

But I digress.

S4 more or less persuaded me to give S5 a miss – first BB game I deliberately avoided, guys – I even bought Battle Isle:The Andosia War after beta testing it!

Settlers 6 was nice but I recently went back to it after playing Anno1404 / Dawn of Discovery and couldn’t handle being so ZOOMED IN all the time.

I’m pretty sure that S7 is going to use the same engine as 1404, and that makes me very happy indeed.

The trailer (link to youtube.com) doesn’t seem to say much about how it’s different than a traditional RTS. To be honest, the trailer doesn’t say much though – other than there’ll be military units and fat monks (cute fat monks, albeit).

It does say you can choose you own path in the trailer, whatever that means though.

I was a beta tester for Settlers 3, and loved how the little guys made their own little tracks that they eventually wore down into paths. Felt like they were much more alive. Wish I still had my Settlers III disk :(

Settlers 2 was so cute and simple and fun, watching your villagers truck supplies too and fro stealing time to slack off and chew bubblegum… Yeah never did feel quite the same as a more traditional RTS. Wonder what this will be like, it looks like it might have the cute-factor! :)